Dr. Wolfgang Schmid

Rechtsanwalt - Of Counsel

Raised in Spain and Ethiopia, Dr. Wolfgang Schmid initially studied medicine after graduating from high school before finding his way into law and passing his first state examination in 1986 after studying in Freiburg/Breisgau and Lausanne.

After completing his military service and during his subsequent legal clerkship, he worked as a scholarship holder at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Competition, Copyright and Patent Law in Munich on his dissertation on "Rechtsfragen des Patentlizenzvertrages im deutsch-spanischen Wirtschaftsverkehr“(“Legal Issues of Patent License Agreements in German-Spanish Business Transactions”), for which he received his doctorate from the University of Freiburg/Breisgau in 1991. In the same year, he passed his second state examination and was admitted to the bar.

He then worked for over three decades as a legal advisor in the Freudenberg Group, a large, internationally active, widely diversified corporation, where he held the position of Deputy General Counsel and was responsible for the legal aspects of industrial property rights (Director Intellectual Property).

Working predominantly in the international arena, his geographical focus, in addition to Spain, had been on the People's Republic of China since the early 1990s, where he established and managed a legal and patent department for his employer and performed several internal consulting functions.

Dr. Wolfgang Schmid's work focused on mergers and acquisitions, including the negotiation of all related, extensive, and cross-border contracts, and the management of group-related litigation and arbitration proceedings. Given the different business and legal practices in Asia, he also devoted himself to the issues of compliance and the protection of trade secrets.

Since leaving his position as in-house counsel in 2022, Dr. Wolfgang Schmid has been advising individual key clients in all areas of commercial law, in particular the drafting and negotiation of contracts, e.g. in connection with securing supply chains, distribution and contract law, and, of course, mergers and acquisitions. In his spare time, he is intensively involved in a non-profit project with the aim of creating jobs for people with disabilities.

Due to his background and decades of professional experience in international legal transactions, working in English, Spanish, and French is a matter of course for Dr. Schmid.